From Coal to Congressional Medal of Honor: The Act of Creation in Research

Type of Abstract (select): Paper presentation

Abstract (max. 250 words):
A 2024 Fulbright Hungary faculty trip has resulted in a feature-length film collaboration with several American and Hungarian scholars, including ETSU award-winning filmmaker and 2025 Fulbright Hungary Scholar Stokes Piercy. Martin Himler immigrated to the United States and passed through Ellis Island in 1908, finding his way to the rural mountains of Appalachia. He became a coal miner, labor union organizer, dual-language journalist, and founder of a rural Appalachian-Hungarian immigrant coal mining town. Later, age 55, Martin became Colonel Himler. After serving in World War II, Colonel Himler, 55, was recruited by the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and within two months’ time collected evidence, arrested, interrogated, got confessions, and led the Hungarian courts to charge the worst Hungarian Nazis (Arrow Cross leaders) of war crimes. Most of those convicted were executed, including but not limited to, Ferenc Szalasi, responsible alone for the death of more than 20,000 Jews. Colonel Himler was later awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. The feature-length film, based on Himler´s autobiography, will create a mutual understanding and strong relationship between not only Hungary and the United States but all peoples who left their native countries and migrated to America pursuing some version of the American Dream (“new migration” period from 1880-1915). Himler would take advantage of the economic opportunity stemming from transnational migration of labor from the global creep of capitalism steeped in the pillaging of mineral, timber, and other natural resources of southern Appalachia but he would never abandon his native country.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Carson Medley, a University of California, Berkeley, graduate holds several degrees: (BA History, Legal Studies; MA English, Education; and doctorate, Education). He has published, two books and written award-winning screenplays. He serves as Assistant Dean at East Tennessee State University, Director of Prestigious Awards, and Fulbright FPA. Dr. Medley works in various scholarly fields, most recently writing about the similarities between Hungary and Appalachia, notably Roma and Appalachian struggles. He resides in Johnson City, Tennessee, with his wife and four children. He has a healthy obsession with basketball, cherishes reading time with his kids, and collects Hungarian stamps.